Integrated microphones are found upon almost all video cameras in the marketplace and are used to record one or more audio tracks in synchronism with video images simultaneously recorded by the camera. Such integrated microphones generally result in poor recorded sound quality, often in spite of the quality of the microphone itself, but primarily because the microphone is not usually positioned close to enough to the sound producing subject. Typically such microphones are omnidirectional and detect much extraneous noise which is recorded along with the subject sound. Existing methods of getting the microphone closer to the desired sound source are unsatisfactory in various ways.
For example, running a cable from the camera to a separate microphone can be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, and is often impractical.
Wireless microphones may be used but are expensive and unreliable. If there is interference between the transmitter and receiver, audio information will often be lost or quality will be reduced. Further, where an increasing number of wireless microphones are used in an area, for example by a number of people making a video recording, it is more likely that there will be interference or lost data.
In professional film and video recording, sound is usually recorded completely separately from the video, and later recombined using such standards as the SMPTE time code system. However, the SMPTE time code system was created with the limitations of tape-based recording media in mind. The SMTPE system requires the recording of an additional audio track containing a special “sync tone”, which contains a simple measure of time. The sync tone repeats every twenty-four hours, however, so it is possible for the system to become confused if recording occurs over a longer period of time. Also, synchronization can be awkward. Devices that wish to be synchronized have to record the sync tone when they do their own recording. If there are several devices recording, they must all connect to the same source producing the sync tone. When the data from separate devices are combined, synchronization is achieved by lining up the sync tones on each device. The inconvenience of recording the same sync tone on each device is too great for most amateur video recording artists.
Video camera remote-controls are typically used when the user of the camera is not nearby the camera. In the instance that the user operates the remote-control to turn the camera on and off, this is usually because the user is in front of the camera and hence is at least part of the subject being recorded.